Trevor Nunn's Twelfth Night: Contemporary
Film and Classic British Theatre

Nicholas R. Jones, Oberlin College

Trevor Nunn's Twelfth Night (1996) takes a relatively conservative
approach to filming Shakespeare, in comparison to more obviously innovative
films of the decade. The film respects the text, performs it with a language-based
classic theatricality, and sets it in a Victorian mise-en-scène reminiscent
of the conservative impulses of the "heritage" film genre. But the film, despite
its classic aspect, engages the text for serious cultural work. In particular,
the casting of long-time Royal Shakespeare Company actor Ben Kingsley (in conjunction
with the direction by RSC regular Trevor Nunn) and the prominence and idiosyncrasy
of Kingsley's role as Feste ground the film in the socially conscious leftist
theatricality of the early years of the RSC. Emphasizing Kingsley's pointed,
enigmatic interactions with the other characters, Nunn creates an atmosphere
of critical interrogation of "normative" roles typical of early RSC productions.
Without blatantly modernizing the play, the film engages the play's potential
to raise questions about contemporary issues such as gender identity and sexuality.
Feste's dark, inquisitive eyes, his riddling and often barbed language, and
his pointed singing of the play's lyrics interrogate the vulnerability of women
and the power of normative heterosexuality in a patriarchal society. Kingsley's
fool enacts two complementary aspects of the artist's mission: to provide a
critical examination of continuing ideological wrongs, and at the same time
to engage us with the comic, romantic, and lyrical pleasures of the text.

Surpassing Glass: Shakespeare's Mirrors

Philippa Kelly, University of New South Wales

'Surpassing Glass: Shakespeare's Mirrors' considers the role
of the mirror in early modern literature, in particular the relationship between
language, mirroring and identity. Beginning with a discription of the making,
availability and impact of glass mirrors in the sixteenth century, the discussion
leads into an analysis of a variety of early modern literary mirrors in context
with current debates on the subject of mirroring and autobiographical self-representation.
In developing its focus on language and mirroring, the paper pays special attention
to Shakespeare's plays and sonnets.

Common-words frequencies, Shakespeare's
style, and the Elegy by W. S.

Hugh Craig University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

In a 1989 book Donald W. Foster presented evidence that the style
of a 1612 elegy signed "W. S." was exceptionally close to Shakespeare's on a
great many quantitative measures. A re-examination of some of this evidence
reveals flaws in Foster's methods. Using the frequencies of very common words,
it is possible to construct an alternative style model which reliably assigns
known Shakespeare poems to Shakespeare, and distinguishes these from poems by
other poets. On this model the Elegy shows some resemblances with Shakespeare's
but diverges from it decisively as larger and larger variable sets are used.

"New Sects of Love": Neoplatonism and Constructions
of Gender in Davenant's The Temple of Love and The Platonick Lovers

Lesel Dawson, University of Bristol

This article examines William Davenant's The Temple of Love
(1635) and The Platonick Lovers (1636) in light of the interaction between
medical and Neoplatonic constructions of love, arguing that the recurrent figure
of the lovesick subject can be read as a reaction to the growing influence of
Neoplatonism at the Caroline court. The discourse of Neoplatonism carries with
it sexual-political implications, granting the female beloved a new metaphysical
and theological significance and enabling her to occupy a dominant position
in her relationship with a male suitor. The hostility of male dramatists to
this protracted inversion of the traditional gender hierarchy informs their
portrayal of Platonic love as an emasculating force. The Temple of Love
and The Platonick Lovers both seek to juxtapose the language of Platonic
love with an examination of physical appetites, suggesting that the artificial
philosophy must eventually give way to a natural, sexual relationship which
reinstates the husband's authority. Within the teleology of the drama, the civil
solution of marriage effects a double remedy, offering a cure for the physical
suffering of the lovesick male patient, while at the same time curtailing the
sexual-political disorder inherent in his unnatural veneration of the female
beloved. In this respect, the subversion of the ideals of Platonic love through
contrary depictions of lovesickness can be read as an attempt to restore the
traditional gender power hierarchy.